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Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Following my last post "Scaffolding in the ESL Classroom", here you are an example of real scaffold in a real context class and one of my PowerPoint presentations on this issue.

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"Many students do not realize the importance of English language in the world until someone shows them (or they make a research!) some empirical data.
English is not only the most spoken language in the world, but also, the one that has been “adopted” by many countries as one of their official languages".

Doing this short project students will discover how many English speakers are in the world, how many and which countries speak English as an official language and what continent has more English speaking countries, among some other interesting issues.

Friday, December 05, 2014

According to Sawyer, 2006, "Instructional scaffolding is a learning process designed to promote a deeper level of learning. Scaffolding is the support given during the learning process which is tailored to the needs of the student with the intention of helping the student achieve his/her learning goals".

Scaffolding, in education, is the provision of sufficient support to promote learning when concepts and skills are being first introduced to students: a compelling task, emplates and guides, guidance on the development of cognitive and social skills...(those who are familiarized with clil, know very well what am I talking about!)

We, as teachers, can use instructional scaffolding in various contexts:

modeling a task

giving advice

providing coaching

These supports are gradually removed as students develop autonomous learning strategies, thus promoting their own cognitive, affective and psychomotor learning skills and knowledge. Teachers help the students master a task or a concept by providing support. The support can take many forms such as outlines, recommended documents, storyboards, or key questions.

Today I like to recommend some posts, webs and articles to provide you with some ideas to do so in the English as a Second Language class (specially primary classes).

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Christmas is fast approaching, and you are probably trying to find some useful tips on what to teach in your ESL classroom over the coming weeks.

How can you make the holiday spirit a part of your classroom?

First, it is important to know what your students already “get.”
A good way to check their understanding of Christmas is by starting your class off with a brainstorming session. You can divide the students into teams and ask them to come up with words related to Christmas. This can become a fun game if you organize a “relay race”: a student from each team must race to the blackboard and write a word. The next student can go when their team member has returned to their seat. Give a point to each team that can think of a Christmas word. At the end of the game, score the points, making sure to strike off any words that have been repeated by other teams.

Knowing some amount of vocabulary is always good to go further in our research of “Christmas”. Teach the words they have missed or you should expect them to come up and organize some other games like Bingo, word searches, or other worksheet activities.

Sometimes, it is also fun to compare how different cultures celebrate Christmas. For example, I love explaining the differences in how Christmas is celebrated in Scotland, Sweden and China. You also can take benefit of your students and their families, if they are from other countries (songs, food, tradition…)

It is also a good idea to organize a Secret Santa gift exchange with the students, and made a short party singing Carols and eating some Christmas cookies or candy canes.

Have a look at the links below to find some fun and interesting ideas!

Whychristmas.com: This is a great website to find information on Christmas traditions around the world.

www.everythingesl.net: Even though your English language learners may not celebrate Christmas, they are fascinated by the many Santa Claus legends. This lesson explores the different gift-giving customs around the world.

Click on “Santa Claus”: The password is the word that is defined as a "small cardboard cylinder covered with decorative paper that holds candy or a party favor and pops when a paper strip is pulled at one or both ends and torn".

Monday, November 17, 2014

It is not new to say that using puppets is a great idea to teach English to Very Young Learners of English.

I’ve been using puppets for long with my Young Learners of English and I can tell you that are a “must” in any ESL teacher tool box. And, I have to say that, as a teacher, I’m rather envious about puppets because children prefer to talk and interact to puppets!

Puppets increase Children’ motivation and encourage their creativity and their need to talk. They speak, talk, chat to their puppets, sing, play, dance with them.

“Children may hesitate to talk to an adult. But, they never refrain from talking to a puppet. Because, puppets are warm and close friends of children”.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

I don't know about you, but to me using language games is one of the best strategies to encourage language acquisition. I really believe in games!

Teachers should consider the advantages of playing language games in the class: for capturing students' attention; for lowering students' stress; and for giving students the chance for real communication.

It is really important to choose an appropriate time and integrate games into the regular syllabus and curriculum. However, because of the limitations of the syllabus, games often cannot be used, as much as they should be. Therefore, it may be challenging for teachers to try to add some games in class in order to develop students' English proficiency of the target language.

"Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game" said Michael Jordan

"Games are designed to create a compelling complex problem space or world, which players come to understand through self-directed exploration. They are scaffolded to deliver just-in-time learning and to use data to help players understand how they are doing, what they need to work on and where to go next. Games create a compelling need to know, a need to ask, examine, assimilate and master certain skills and content areas. Some experts argue that games are, first and foremost, learning systems, and that this accounts for the sense of engagement and entertainment players experience" (from Institute of Play)

Monday, November 03, 2014

Each new school year we get to know a new bunch (or bunches!) of students. It is important to know bits of them as quick as possible. This is paramount in your classroom management and in your one to one relation.

You can find in this blog a lot of activities to start with: let’s to know each other, breaking the ice, knowing each other names… All of them are very useful as a starting point, to recognize faces, to know the names... but, that's all!

The starting project I’ve done this year with my fifth graders has been about letting children to show things about themselves as a way to introduce some aspects they feel proud about them, or they would like to.

My goal was to get to know them more while also providing a display that can be used for writing and speaking in our English class. We also did a revision of some vocabulary (clothes, personality adjectives, sports, likes and dislikes…), we learnt some new one (body measures, aches…), some grammar structures (questions, answers, present and past tenses…). And we involved many skills on the way.

This was a fun way to get to know each other better and to give children some resources to write, to speak and to keep works in their portfolios.

Why not make the learning process fun and cute with this little Person Pop-Up craft? My students made "themselves" dressed in a fancy, fashion or cool way, and fill out with some information they got from the All About Me booklet.

Here I add some resources I've found when preparing the project. They can be very useful if you want to adapt it to other level, to do an "I am Special" unit, or to use them in your Star of the Week activities!

Friday, October 24, 2014

This is a project about the music the students’ parents and/or grandparents listen to.

The students will develop a full project contrasting and comparing different issues: culture, lyrics, bands, singers, traditions, dancing styles, places to dance, performances, type of music...

Within the project they will do a survey among their parents or grandparents, they will collect and present the information and they will do a little research about the past.

We will offer different possibilities for the final task: work the lyrics out, perform the dancing style of each music or song, create a mix-song file (revival), do a show and tell, desig an LP cover or “jacket”, a display or an exhibition...

Objectives

The main objectives of this project are:

To do a survey to parents or grandparents about the anglo – american music and singers they used to listen to when they were young.

To do a research about different aspects around that music: lyrics, singers and bands, clothes, styles, performances… in that time.

To present the results of the survey and the research in the format the students choose: a video, a Power Point, a revival, a show and tell, a performance, a poster or display …

To leader an activity in front of the class: filling the gaps, role play, play back, karaoke…
Top give value to partners’ productions

First we made a brainstorm to know what questions we want to do to our parents about the music and groups they used to listen when they were young. Then they did a survey and tried to organize the information in grids or in an Excel.
After this, in groups, they decided what outcome they want to do as a final production: a Power Point, a Word document, an oral presentation video recorded, karaoke, Web 2.0 tools...
Finally, we share our productions with all the class, with the rest of the school and parents.
The project was evaluated with a rubric, a self-assessment and a group-assessment.

With this project we are coping in an integrated way all the basic language skills: speaking, listening, writing, reading and interacting. We also work other competencies like learning to learn, ICT, arts and crafts, social...
It is and interdisciplinary project as we use knowledge from different areas in a contextualized way: audio-visual production, communicative abilities, processing information, knowledge transfer, attitude of collaboration and cooperation…

If you want to know more about this project, download the lesson plan, documents and rubrics, click on this link: ARC
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They influence a child’s emotional, cognitive, and social development.

They help children feel secure and comfortable.

They help children understand the expectations of the environment.

They help reduce the frequency of behavior problems

They can result in higher rates of child engagement.

"A routine is an event that is completed on a regular basis, frequently involving a series of responses. During routines children learn about the sequence of activities, they begin to anticipate what will happen next, and they work on becoming more independent".

Children are less likely to engage in challenging behavior when they are aware of and can anticipate changes in the routine.

Remember:

A schedule that is followed consistently helps make settings more predictable for children and adults. When planning activity schedules, caregivers should consider the balance of activities (outside vs. inside, active vs. passive, teacher directed vs. child directed, the pace of activities, and the length of young children’s attention span).

Longer play periods can result in higher levels of play behaviors.

Teachers and caregivers should include blocks of time where children have choices between different activities and materials.

At the beginning of the school year, caregivers should discuss the classroom schedule using a picture or object chart to help children understand what will come next.

How to help children to make transitions between activities?

Prepare children to move from one activity or setting to another.
Provide verbal cues before transitions (e.g., “5 minutes ‘til snack,” “it’s almost clean-up time”).
Use nonverbal cues (e.g., showing pictures of the next activity, ringing a bell).

Plan your daily schedule to include transition times, and consider what the children and adults in the setting will do during these times.
Sing songs, play word or guessing games, recite rhymes, or do finger plays with children so that the time passes more quickly when they have to wait for long periods of time for new activities to begin.
Plan a gradual increase or decrease in the level of activity (e.g., outdoor play followed by snack) and a good balance of active and quiet play (e.g. center time followed by story time).
Limit transitions between activities.
Allow children adequate time to finish projects or activities.

Individualize transition strategies.
Provide support or different types of support to children during transitions (e.g., photos to help anticipate what activity is next, directions given in a child’s home language or sign language, an individual warning to a child that soon it will be time to clean up and begin a new activity).

Help children become more independent across the year as they make transitions from one activity to another.

http://thecuriouskindergarten.wordpress.com/

Allow children to move individually from one area to another area when they complete an activity (e.g., as children finish snack, they are encouraged to go to the carpet and choose a book).
Teach children to help others (e.g., have children move as partners from one activity to another or ask one child to help another child gather his/her back pack).
Help children self-monitor during transitions (e.g., children can be asked to think about how quietly or quickly they moved from one activity to another).

Provide positive attention to the children following the transitions that go smoothly (e.g., the times that children pick up the toys without much prompting).
Give very specific positive feedback after transitions (e.g., “Nicholas and Jorge did a great job cleaning up the block area and moving to the carpet.”).

Using classroom activities and routines as opportunities

to support peer interaction

Plan or design activities that support peer interactions.
Examine daily routines and activities to identify jobs or tasks that adults are doing that children could do such as assisting with snack, gathering book bags with a peer, and distributing art materials.
If needed, add steps to activities that would support peer interactions (e.g., pairing students to “dance with a partner” during a music activity, playing follow the leader through an obstacle course, inviting a friend to play during center time).

Support peer interactions during naturally occurring routines.

Arrivals — Ask a child to greet friends and ask them a question.

Transition times — Ask a child to invite another child to go to an activity.

Circle and story times — Ask a child to pass out and collect materials.

Snack time — Ask a child to pass out plates, cups, napkins, and snacks/juice.

Provide cues and assistance to support positive peer interactions, as needed.
Some children will require more assistance than others. Adults should be present and ready to provide assistance as needed (e.g., help a child invite a peer to do an activity with him/her; prompt a child who is collecting props to “Tell Tricia to ‘Put it in.’”). Provide only enough assistance for the child to be successful; make sure you do not complete the task for them.

Reinforce social interactions as they occur.
It is important that children know that we value peer interaction. Even if social interactions are a planned part of the day, it is important to praise and reinforce children for engaging in these interactions.

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

I've been searching for a long time the way to motivate my students into writing. Here in this blog you can have a look to other posts with prompts, creative writing ideas and some "juggling" and tricks for to engage children writing. I don’t know about you but my students in the school seems to have less and less need to write with every passing day, so soon they won’t have any need to do it.

Writing texts clearly and comprehensively is a difficult task because you have to bring into play a series of different processes and different skills. The days of communication via Messenger or ‘whatsapp’ are numbered according the new apps that are appearing (voice whatsapp , apps for converting voice to text, on line ‘intelligent’ translators, , ... ) .

So what should we do to motivate our students to write?

The following PowerPoint is from a session of Ceri Jones at the British Council in Barcelona that I found simply extraordinary, not only for the simple idea of "micro- writing", but also for the high motivation that arouses in children this way of "playing" with language .

It is about exploring how a range of micro writing tasks can activate language, encourage communication and aid class cohesion. Micro-writing comes from the Write to Learn tradition, which is also popular in L1 content teaching.

I’m sure I will use some of the proposed activities and strategies with my students this year. I will tell you more in next posts.

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

I have been working on Projects in my ESL classes since... (Dear me! I don’t remember! I’m getting old, for sure!), and I’m totally convinced that Project Working is potentially the most motivating way for children to “spend” their classroom time. You either can call it TBL or PBL, but anyway...

Based on my experience setting up projects in primary ESL classes and doing some teacher training on this topic, here are some tips adapted from Diana Fried-Booth in her book Project Work (OUP 1986) (yes, I know it is a 20 years old book but there are things still worth considering!)

It is not a closed list and it doesn’t mean that you must follow all the steps! It is just a model that you could think of following.

Setting up a project

1. Stimulus

Doing some kind of speaking activity, or reading and speaking, to stimulate interest in the project.

2. Definition of the project objective

Discussing and negotiating what the students will achieve exactly with this project.

3. Skills work

If the project involves data collection or writing up, then this stage could be to prepare them with the language they need for that.

4. Design of materials

Questionnaires, maps, grids for data collection. These can be made together in class.

5. Group activities

This is actually when they go and do the project.

6. Collating information

Reading and discussing what was found out.

7. Organization of materials

Designing the end product, again perhaps in class.

8. Final presentation

You can also have a look to the following PowerPoint from a Project Work Teacher Training Session, conducted by Patricia Meneses and I in Vic, Barcelona.

In the Issuu paper you can get some ideas and hints (developed by the teachers in the seminar) in order to plan, design and develop your projects in the ESl class.

Tuesday, September 09, 2014

Last school year, I had the opportunity to do an inservice training session on assessment to a group of teachers in my area. While preparing the speech and all the materials I visited one of my favourite websites of ESL teachers: Busyteacher.org . There I found a very useful article entitled Top 10 Ways to Assess Your Students, written or compiled by Susan Verner.

Today, I like to transcript this article and offer you a Power Point on Assessment Primary ESL. Oh! And for those who don’t know Busyteacher.org, here you are a short video just with a bit of whole you can find in this web! Enjoy!

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Just a reminder of ten of the most popular ways to assess ESL students.

Oral Interview

You can do a one on one interview with each of your students to get a good idea of their listening and speaking abilities. You can schedule these types of interviews during class (perhaps take each student into the hall to have a private discussion while the rest of the class does seat work) or schedule with students individually. Asking questions that use grammatical structures and vocabulary that your class has studied will help you know exactly what each student has grasped. Do not penalize a student for not knowing content if he or she can compose grammatically and situationally correct statements or questions in response to your questions.

Class Presentation

A presentation in class assesses a different aspect of spoken language. When you ask a student to speak in front of the class, he is able to prepare and practice what he wants to say. He can also research information on his topic. In this case, the grade you give your student should be based on both content and presentation.

Role Play

Another way to assess your students’ speaking abilities is by having them perform role-plays in front of the class. By giving them a situation and roles to play, you can see how creatively your students are able to use language with one another. Be listening for content and grammar as with any oral assessment, but you can also be attuned to how your students are making creative use of their language to communicate with one another. Even if they show grammatical imperfection, are your students able to understand each other? Are they able to use the language skills they possess to get their point across to their partner? These are important skills and ones you should foster in your students.

Cloze Exam

A cloze exam is an atypical way to test the understanding your students have of grammar. To write a cloze exam, write an original paragraph or take one that your students have used in their studies. Then replace every fifth or sixth word with a blank. Ask your students to fill in the blanks with words they think would be most logical and grammatical. You will see a variety of answers among your students, but as long as the answers are grammatically and logically correct, the student should receive full credit.

Fill in the Blank

A fill in the blank test may seem similar to a cloze exam, but this type of test is used to test a specific grammatical structure or set of vocabulary. You can write individual sentences or an entire paragraph for your students, but it is probably best to provide a word bank in either case. You may choose to supply more words than will be necessary to fill in the blanks to make the test more challenging. This will force your students to choose the best answers rather than matching ten words with ten blanks.

Writing Sample

Having your students give you a writing sample is another good way to assess their proficiency with grammar. If you have them write something for homework, you run the risk that someone other than your student will do the writing. Often friends or native speakers will correct a nonnative speaker’s writing with the intention of helping, but this will not give you an accurate picture of your student’s writing. To avoid this, have your students do a periodic in class writing. Give them an adequate amount of time to write about a subject that you assign. You will then get an accurate look at their grammatical and writing proficiency. Follow up your assessment with some mini-lessons on common grammatical pitfalls that the class exhibited.

Portfolio

To expand the material you base your students’ grades on, why not assign each person to assemble a portfolio. A portfolio is a collection of work samples that cover several aspects of the assignments your students have completed. This is an especially effective way to assess your students if you have the same class for reading, writing, listening, speaking and grammar. Ask each student to compile a collection of ten works for you to grade. You can include specific assignments on the list, but you can also give a category and ask your students to present their best work. Ask for a grammar homework assignment, a writing sample and a vocabulary exercise, for example. Your students can then choose the work that they are most proud of. They may feel more encouraged to be graded on their strengths rather than their weaknesses.

Online Quiz

You do not have to spend as much of your class time assessing your students as was often necessary in the past. With the extensive collection of online resources for ESL students, you can require your students to spend time at home or in a language lab period working on exercises and quizzes available online. Have your students print out their final scores or e-mail them to you. In so doing, your students will still get feedback on their work and knowledge, but you will not have to give up valuable class time for it to happen.

Multiple Choice Exam

Sometimes the classics are often the way to go when assessing your students. If you choose to give a multiple-choice exam, keep these pointers in mind when writing the questions. Make sure all the answers are grammatically correct. Your students should not be able to eliminate an answer based on grammar alone (unless, of course, that is what you are trying to test). Also, try to keep all the answer choices around the same length. If you choose to include the options “all of the above” or “none of the above”, make sure they are options for additional questions. If you keep these tips in mind when you write your multiple-choice quiz, you will get better results from your students.

True/False Quiz

The true/false quiz is also a classic that is used by most teachers. When you use this type of test, do not give trick questions that focus on minor details. Even more important, have your students correct the questions that they say are false. If they are making the corrections rather than just identifying the mistakes, you will make sure they are answering from what they know rather than making lucky guesses. You can assign one point to each answer and another point to each correction on the test.

There are many other ways for assessing your students. The more variety you use in assessing your students, the better your picture will be of their overall language skills.

Wednesday, September 03, 2014

The approach on when ande how introduce Mind maps to Younger Children will vary depending upon the age and maturity of the children involved.

I've just found this post written by Michael Tipper on www.happychild.org.uk that explains clearly how to do that (and this is the way I do it!)

"First of all I never tell the kids that we are "Mind Mapping" or doing anything special. I tell them that we are going to learn about, for example, a farm.

From englishvillage.wordpress.com

I will have a huge piece of paper (at least flip chart size) and will either ask them to draw what a farm looks like or will get the kids to cut out pictures from magazines so that there is a central image of a farm. If I don't have any child safe scissors I usually cut out a load of pictures myself but if I can encourage the children to sort through magazines and find their own pictures, providing it is safe, I'll let them cut them out.

I then ask them what sort of things do we see on a farm. I either suggest or try to encourage them to come up with generic words like Animals, Buildings, Crops, People, Machinery etc. These form the Key Images on the main branches because I will either ask them to draw an animal or a building etc or once again get them to cut pictures out from Magazines.

Then having captured the main branches I will go deeper into one of the topic areas for example I will ask what animals they may find on a farm and again sub branches for sheep, cows, pigs, hens etc develop and once again the children will generate these branches themselves. Now my description of this process is somewhat linear because as you are no doubt aware, young children will just tell you everything that they can think of without following my adult-orientated logical approach. I describe it in this way for ease of explanation but essentially what happens is that the mind map will grow and it will consist entirely of pictures structured in Mind Map form. In fact capturing the information this way is a great way of harnessing children's creativity and spontaneity. A more linear, topic by topic approach may stifle a child's natural desire to blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. Another good thing about doing it this way is that the children can work together in teams, one doing the "Animal" branch, another doing the "Machinery" branch etc.

If this approach is adopted when covering any topic, it will just seem natural to the children that it is the most sensible and fun way to capture information. Then if you ask the children to tell you all about the farm (or whatever the subject is) they will "see" the Mind Map, particularly the bits that they were responsible for, and will give a very comprehensive and structured account of a farm. If you are dealing with very young children who are just learning to read, you could label the Mind Map Images with large lettered words to help them recognise the words from the pictures.

For parents this is a great way of bonding with your child and exploring a subject together. For teachers it is a simple way of engaging young children in an activity that will help them learn and process information about a topic".

This three minutes clip, provided by MacGrercy Consultants (www.macgrercy.com) shows you the basics of how to make a mind map.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

The summer holidays
are finishing. The days seem to pass quicker as they are getting shorter. The suitcases
are cleaned and stored in the box room. Clothes, the school bag, a new pen
drive, some pens, folders, my new teacher notebook... The leisure has been
changed by frenetic afternoons doing some “back to school shopping”. Even, a
new agenda has been bought and It is been already filled with plans for the “back
to school” initial days.

This will
be my 35th year as a teacher, and my 50th following these end of summer rituals
since I was a mere a six year’s old boy.

"Back to school" routines have been
a part of my life for most of my Augusts… as a student, a dad, a teacher, a school
principal, a teacher trainer...

"These
rituals before the first day of school represent something of a rebirth. It
offers an opportunity for new experiences, new relationships, new knowledge,
and new skills forall of us who walk the halls of schools".

From yogacalm.wordpress.com/

For most of
us, these routines bring excitement and happiness. But for some students, these
are days of anxiety and angst. They are children who are confident and
competent on holidays, summers, and school vacations, but are frightened and
frustrated when they enter the classroom. They learn differently than the other
children: instructions, “show and tell” activities, oral reading, class discussions...
confuse, panic, terrify, frustrate, humiliate them!

No matter
where you teach, you will have some of these children in your class this year. You
have had them in past years. You will have them in the future.

Every
school year we have more and more children like these. They consume lots of our
energies and time to find resources for them. They deserve we deal more effectively
and sensitively with their learning, because they don’t learn, they need to be
taught.

I hope this
school year (here in my blog) I can offer you some resources, practices, best
teaching ideas and projects to cope with diversity in our classroom.

Learning a
new language, a second or a foreign language, is not as easy as it seems. All
of us have once experienced how terrifying can be speaking in a different
language in front of an audience and how stressful it is not to find the right
words as we are short of vocabulary!

Diversity in the classroom...

We need to make students with special needs feel warm, welcome, confident, and wanted. This is a great effort but it is worth
doing it!

... a wonderful opportunity for creativity!

Some thoughts and ideas inspired from Rick Lavoie "September Thoughts: Reflections on a New School Year" July 2008 in www.ldonline.org/

Saturday, July 12, 2014

I’m closing down the blog for the summer. After 3 years, 200 posts, nearly 130,000 hits, and many comments, visits, views, ... I think it’s time to call it a day!

I hope this won't be the end of blogging. In the autumn I’ll be back for sure, but probably some changes will be done. A new spirit, a new direction....

Education matters are going bad in my country and we need critical voices to cheer up the discouragement of teachers. We can not give up teaching... we need to fight for children's, parents and teachers rights.

Tuesday, July 01, 2014

The introduction of a foreign language in kindergarten is often justified by the widespread belief that “as soon as children begin to become familiar with the new language, easier learning will be”.

The statement "children are like sponges", is a usual comment made both from teachers and from families. These are often the ones that tend to address pressure to schools headmasters to achieve that their children start learning English when they have not yet started primary school.

Are you one of those that are planning to start teaching English in kindergarten next school year?

Is your school evaluating the possibility of carrying out the introduction of a second or a third language in infant school?

What do experts say about it?

Take your time to read through these articles and make your own opinion. But do not forget that:

"Starting teaching English, as a second or third language, in kindergarten must be based on an agreement on the methodology and the goals to achieve throughout schooling. Teachers need to know early childhood education characteristics and English language must be integrated within general school program in order to develop a joint project. Teaching English for one or two hours a week doing out of context activities, will be a waste of time!"

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Classroom management has the largest effect on student achievement: students cannot learn in a chaotic, poorly managed classroom. For this reason, one of the classroom teacher's most important jobs is managing the classroom effectively. Teachers' actions in their classrooms have twice the impact on student achievement as do school policies regarding curriculum, assessment, staff, and community involvement.

It is really important of being a balance between teacher actions that provide clear consequences for unacceptable behaviour and teacher actions that recognize and reward acceptable behaviour.

Developing good dynamics of classroom management means, among other important aspects, beginning the school year with a positive emphasis on management; arranging the room in a way conducive to effective management; and identifying and implementing rules and operating procedures.

But above all, the quality of teacher-student relationships is the keystone for all other aspects of classroom management. Teachers who have high-quality relationships with their students have fewer discipline problems, rule violations, and related problems over a year's time than teachers who do not have high-quality relationships with their students.

From one of my in Service training sessions this school year this are the mind maps teachers did around this topic and the issues they are more concerned about.

Monday, June 16, 2014

Let's pretend to be ...Incorporating role-play into the classroom adds variety, a change of pace and
opportunities for a lot of language production and also a lot of fun!

At a restaurant role play

Role-play is any speaking activity when you either put yourself into somebody
else's shoes, or when you stay in your own shoes but put yourself into an
imaginary situation!

Imaginary people - The joy of role-play is that students can 'become' anyone
they like for a short time! A pop star, a customer in a restaurant, a shop assistant …….. the choice is endless! Students can also take on the opinions of someone
else. 'For and Against' debates can be used and the class can be split into
those who are expressing views in favour and those who are against the theme.

Imaginary situations - Functional language for a multitude of scenarios can be
activated and practised through role-play. 'At the restaurant', 'Checking in at
the airport', 'Looking for lost property' are all possible role-plays.

Why use role-play?

It is widely agreed that learning takes place when activities are engaging and
memorable. Jeremy Harmer advocates the use of role-play for the following
reasons:

Let's pretend to be doctors!

It's fun and motivating

Quieter students get the chance
to express themselves in a more forthright way

The world of the classroom is
broadened to include the outside world - thus offering a much wider range
of language opportunities

Role-play is possible at elementary levels providing the students have been
thoroughly prepared. Try to think through the language the students will need
and make sure this language has been presented. Students may need the extra
support of having the language on the board. I recently did a 'back yard sale' role-play with primary learners and we spent time beforehand drilling
the structures the students would need to use. When the role-play began the
students felt 'armed' with the appropriate language. At higher levels the
students will not need so much support with the language but they will need
time to 'get into' the role.

The role of the teacher

Some of the possible teacher roles are:

Facilitator - students may need
new language to be 'fed' in by the teacher. If rehearsal time is
appropriate the feeding in of new language should take place at this
stage.

Spectator - The teacher watches
the role-play and offers comments and advice at the end.

Participant - It is sometimes
appropriate to get involved and take part in the role-play yourself.

Bring situations to life

A simple prop may help a lot!

Realia and props can really bring a role-play to life. A group of my young
learners recently played the roles of customers and the waiter in a restaurant. A simple menu made with photos, a notebook and a cloth on the left arm made
the whole process more fun and memorable for the class. As soon as it was
placed on their heads they 'became' customers and waiters and acted accordingly.

Rearranging the furniture can also help. If you are imagining you are at the
hairdresser or at the doctor's try to make it as real as
you can. Students can even leave the room and make an entrance by knocking on
the door.Try to keep the roles you ask students to play as real to life as possible. This may involve using some L1 to
explain about the local culture or to translate local menus into English for
the guest to their country.

Some scaffolding is always welcomed!

Feed-in language

As mentioned in the role of the teacher section, feeding-in the language
students need is fundamental. By doing so, they will learn new vocabulary and
structure in a natural and memorable environment. It is a chance to use real and
natural language.

Error Correction

There are many ways to correct mistakes when using role-play. It is rarely
appropriate for the teacher to jump in and correct every mistake. This could be
incredibly demotivating! Some students do like to be corrected straight after a
role-play activity, while the language is still fresh in their minds. Sentences
with errors can be written on the board for the group to correct together.

Self-correction - If you have
the equipment to record the role-plays on
video, students can be given the opportunity to listen to the dialogue
again and reflect on the language used. They may find it easy to spot
their own mistakes.

Peer-correction - Fellow
students may be able to correct some mistakes made by their peers.
Students could be asked to listen out for both great bits of language
they'd like to use themselves, and some mistakes they hear. Be careful to
keep peer-correction a positive and profitable experience for all
involved.

Making a note of common
mistakes yourself and dealing with them in future classes ensures that the
students don't lose motivation by being corrected on the spot or straight
after the role-play. Negotiate with students and ask them how they would
like to be corrected.

Use your
imagination and have fun

Role-play can be a lot of fun. If you still feel reluctant to use it in the class
I suggest you begin to integrate it slowly. Why not extend an appropriate
reading or a listening from a course book and turn it into a role-play? You may
be pleasantly surprised by the results!